|
?:reviewBody
|
-
In 1999, Morgan Worthy, a research psychologist at Georgia State University, proposed the hypothesis that light-eyed individuals might be more likely than dark-eyed individuals to develop alcohol dependence. Worthy mentioned this idea in passing, after a discussion of other physical properties correlated to dark eyes that hinted at relationships between eye color and human behavior or function. Eye color is determined primarily by variations in the number and particle size of just one pigment: melanin. Though other pigments may play a role, melanin is the main factor involved. More melanin results in darker eyes, moving from blue to grey, green, hazel, brown, and black. The amount and nature of melanin in the human iris is controlled or modified by multiple genes that serve other functions as well. That eye darkness is related to multiple genes with roles in different aspects of the human body makes finding a convincing link between eye pigmentation and human traits via genetics challenging. In his book Eye Color: A Key to Human and Animal Behavior, Worthy made the argument that eye color and physiological reactivity (i.e., how a body physically responds to a stimulus of any kind) appear to be correlated, and that this fact could potentially demonstrate a link between eye darkness, alcohol tolerance, and alcohol abuse because it would mean that light-eyed individuals might have to consume larger quantities of alcohol to get drunk than others: At the time, the notion was speculative. In 2001, researchers (also from Georgia State University) tested Worthy’s hypothesis using the information obtained from two separate surveys, one of 10,860 Caucasian male prison inmates, and another of 1,862 Caucasian women. In both samples, the researchers reported, individuals with light eyes ... consumed significantly more alcohol than individuals with dark eyes. This, they argued, supported Worthy’s alcoholism hypothesis: Generally speaking, it is this Georgia State University study, demonstrating that lighter-eyed folks generally drink more than darker-eyed folks, that people reference when they make memes about blue-eyed people having a higher tolerance for alcohol. For example, the website MindblowingFacts.org cited the study in a 2012 article that may have inspired later memes: That doesn’t mean the science is anywhere near settled, however, nor does it mean science has abandoned the question. While it is unknown exactly what mechanism would link eye color with alcohol dependence, one genetic explanation does jibe with the earlier research: a mutation on a gene that codes for the production of melanin (OCA2, the melanosomal transmembrane protein): In 2015, a group of researchers from the University of Vermont and Yale sought to test the notion that dark-eyed persons, with their potentially greater sensitivity to alcohol, might have a lower incidence of alcohol dependence because they need to drink less alcohol to get drunk. To test that nation, the researchers looked for correlations between eye color and alcoholism in a representative sample of European-descended individuals. They did find a slightly increased risk of alcoholism in light-eyed individuals, hinting that eye color could be a potential indicator of alcohol dependence risk. A 2017 study approached the same question, albeit in a much more limited fashion, with a bit of breathalyzer field work. This work also supported the association: Such studies remain limited in size, scope, and number, and are in some cases controversial. As a result, a more complete and confident understanding of the possible relationships between eye color and alcohol tolerance remains elusive, and the meme remains unproven.
(en)
|
![[This page as RDF]](http://data.gesis.org/claimskg/static/rdf-icon.gif){kind=icon}